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Chimney Cake Recipe

A chimney cake is an odd thing in that it’s an enriched yeast bread that’s wound onto a thick wooden spit, then roasted over a charcoal fire. The hardest part of this recipe is constructing the implement you need. More on that as the week progresses.

Combine the dry dough ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Do the same with the wet ingredients and add them to the dry ingredients. Stir the mixture until it comes together to form a dough, then knead it for about five minutes. Allow the dough to rise for 40 minutes. Cut the dough into a long ribbon with a pizza cutter (as shown).

Paint your spit with vegetable oil. Wrap one end of the dough around the spit, tucking in the end so the dough doesn’t unwind. Keep the dough very thin as you stretch and wind, under 1/4″ inch. Roll the whole thing on the countertop to flatten it/press it together. Paint the dough with melted butter and roast over the fire for about six minutes, sprinkling on sugar, until it starts to take on a dark golden color.

Paint on more butter, then roll the finished cake in the nut mixture. Tap the mold on a table top to release the cake and set it upright to cool. Make more and eat, eat, eat.

How strange. Just yesterday I ended up in a wiki-hole full of spit cakes. Can’t remember how I started off; obviously I was looking up something unrelated on wikipedia, but ended up reading about all the different spit-cakes and was thinking I must have a go at making some!

Hi joe, I used your recipe on my blog. I had this treat on the farmers market but no recipe. I clearly stated that this is your recipe and linked to your page. I hope that this is alright with you. Thank you, Jen

In a summer vacation, we made it for ourselves on an open fire. We looked for thicker wood sticks at forest. After some cleaning, put dough pasta on it, and sweet topping…
you have to roll it above fire.
Fantastic!

My daughter is allergic to egg, is it possible to make a chimney cake without egg? The egg replacement powders never really work, so I have given up using that when I bake normal cakes. I studied in Budapest years ago, and absolutely love their chimney cakes and would love to start making it myself.

You can. Try using ground flax seed and hot water (for every egg, 1T ground flax to 2-3 T water whisked together and rested until a gel forms) to replace the egg’s binding and texture-enhacing properties. You can usually find it in health food stores!

Unfortunately I don’t know. I did some research back when I wrote this post, but came up with very little. I saw it for the first time when I visited Transylvania. Perhaps it is native to that area, where plenty of Hungarians live, but who are called Romanians now. Just a guess!

Just saw a booth selling these at a local trade fair, so they have made their way to northern Canada, had a free sample and started thinking about getting a recipe. I was wondering if the name was an indication of what it was cooked on, and now I know. I am going to try this and see how it goes, the booth had a smaller one that you could slip over a hotdog, with what looked like chili powder but might have been dried tomato powder and mustard powder like ketchup and mustard. they had several different ones with sweet toppings and offered the nutella filled ones as well. The price was too much for my pocket book, but the taste was nice.

Hi joe!
Me and my husband actually just started a business making chimney cakes our recipe is a little different then that one. But everyone loves them. How do you cook your chimney cakes on a grill? Or in a actual chimney cake oven?

Hi there Joe,
I bought a savoury (Parmesan & olive) & sweet (cinnamon & sugar) at the Freo markets, Fremantle yesterday. They were equally amazing! Love the idea of it and would love to make at home. How would you recommend baking these at home? I have a rottiserie (although never used) attachment for my oven, do you think that’s an option? Does it have to rotate?
Look forward to your input….

Saw these in Norway two weeks ago but didn’t try them because we were cruising and had no stomach room:(. My friend just came home from Hungary last for a flying visit and brought me a chimney cooking rod! I can’t wait to try your recipe out since she didn’t have a translation for me. Thanks.

I know there are some all ready prepared mixes that you just add flower and water to it for preparing the dough. Any idea where I could get my hands on something like that? I’m located in Montreal, Canada; maybe there is a website or something that could deliver?

I work at a chimney cakes bakery this recipe tastes better then ours if you roll these in course sugar and fill with real whipped cream you will die !! Lol this is something I did at home not at work lol